1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multimodal service session establishing method, a multimodal service providing method, a multimodal service session establishing system, a multimodal service providing system, and programs for the same, and more particularly to the multimodal service session establishing method, the multimodal service providing method, the multimodal service session establishing system, the multimodal service providing system, and programs for the same, each of which is capable of almost removing mutual dependence on software among terminals and service servers.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-104435 filed on Mar. 31, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional multimodal service providing system is already known. Its example is a teleconferencing system (hereinafter called a “conventional teleconferencing system”). The conventional teleconferencing system is so configured that a plurality of terminal devices (hereinafter called simply a “terminal”) that join teleconference is connected through a network to a teleconferencing system server. In the terminal is installed a program of a teleconferencing system application and in the teleconferencing system server are installed a telephone application program and/or white board sharing application program.
A request for using multimodal service to be issued by users who are using terminals of a conventional teleconferencing system reaches, through program processing of a teleconferencing system application installed in terminals, a teleconferencing system server where programs of the telephone application and/or white board shared application are executed, based on the request, to provide multimodal service desired by users to users of terminals.
A service linking system is disclosed in Patent Reference 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 10-232899) which integrates a plurality of basic service contents to provide virtual service. In the disclosed service linking system, virtual service that is to be provided to users is defined in advance and each of basic service objects of basic service making up the virtual service is driven, based on the definition, in a specified order and, as a result, the virtual service object for the virtual service is generated and, when the generated virtual service object is executed, individual basic service is integrated by operations of users as virtual service and the integrated virtual service is provided to users.
A service linking system is disclosed in Patent Reference 2 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-265096) in which each of service contents to be provided by a plurality of servers is linked according to system environments of each server. In the service linking system, based on master information managed by a service pattern managing means (service pattern managing section) and information about newest connecting states with a plurality of servers being managed, at specified intervals, by a server state managing means (server state managing section), the service pattern managing means generates a newest service pattern and, based on server availability and its threshold value, a service generating means (service generating section) selects the service that can be provided to users, out of newest service patterns generated by the service pattern managing means, to generate service for provision to users.
A group communication system is disclosed in Patent Reference 3 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-165742) in which, by controlling a distributing path to be used by user terminals for communications depending on an increase or decrease in the number of users who join a group communication, a user terminal can join the group communication sequentially or can break away from the communications. When a session information registering terminal making up the group communication system registers session information on a session information server, the session information server assigns a session identifier to the session information registering terminal. The session information registering terminal sequentially notifies each of user portable terminals that join a session of the assigned session identifier and these user terminals, by using the received session identifier, registers its own distributing path information on the session information server and each of the user terminals acquires distributing path information of other user terminal from the session information server. This enables the user terminal to join the session. To break away from the session, the user terminal transmits a request for deletion of the distributing path information and an event for the deletion and then the session information server generates new distributing path information in response to the deletion request and renews the distributing path information while the user terminal updates the distributing path information in the same way. This allows the user terminal to break away from the session.
However, the conventional technologies described above have problems. That is, in the example of the teleconferencing system, due to a close relation between the teleconferencing system application program of a terminal to be used for provision of multimodal service and the white board shared application program, addition of application program for new service to the teleconferencing system server is not easy. That is, if the system remains unchanged, provision of new service obtained by integration of existing application (service) and other application (service) is very difficult.
In the service linking system disclosed in the Patent Reference 1, each of the basic service objects is made to be sequentially driven based on the definition of virtual service to generate a virtual service object and, while the generated virtual service object is being performed and each of the basic service contents is being provided by users, these basic service contents are integrated into virtual service contents for provision to users and, therefore, a specified link is established among objects of a plurality of basic service contents and those of the virtual service contents, which, as a result, makes it difficult to integrate service other than basic service that has already been built-in.
In the service linking system disclosed in Patent Reference 2, a plurality of service patterns is generated by using master information managed by the service pattern managing means and service that can be provided to users is selected out of the plurality of service patterns and is generated to provide it to users and, therefore, though it is described in the Patent Reference 2 that a plurality of service contents is linked in this system, the master information itself serving as a source of the service patterns to be generated is managed by the service pattern managing means and there is no method that allows users to participate in the generation of the service patterns, which disables the service linking in which users takes the initiative.
In the group communication system disclosed in the Patent Reference 3, the session information registering terminal registers session information on the session information registering terminal. The session information registering terminal sequentially notifies an assigned identifier to each of user terminals that join the session and the user terminals register, by using the received session identifier, its own distributing path information on the session information server and each of user terminals acquires distributing path information of other user terminal from the session information server. This shows that the user terminals can join the session. However, in the case where the session is, for example, a teleconference, an integrated form of a plurality of media to be transmitted or received among user terminals is not described specifically and, therefore, it is assumed that the applied technology follows the conventional one, which causes conventional technological problems remain unsolved. This is also true for the breaking away from the group communications.